


Alone as a Plurality

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (basically you can imagine a dorito bag and there is a dorito bag), Dream Bubbles, Existential Crisis, Gen, No Romance, ill add more tags as i go if i go, sorry - Freeform, unrealistic boundaries in relation to space and time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 22:44:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1486864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is DIRK STRIDER, and you are DEAD due to a flaw in your NIGH INDESTRUCTIBLE plan, with nigh being the key part of the phrase. Your auto responder, the REAL one, apparently waited too long, or something else went wrong when you stuck your head in the SENDIFICATOR, and you have yet to REVIVE. You don’t know it yet, but you’ve ended up in one of the most CONVOLUTED parts of the multiverse, namely:  	</p>
<p>Dream Bubbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone as a Plurality

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to try this shit out, and see if it works.  
> Dunno if it will, but I'm going to keep the chapters short to see if I can keep up with regular updates like that. Enjoy it if you can!

TT: You’re dead, you know.

 TT: Not as in “the Batterwitch is going to do you in for good and you’re fucking screwed,” but as in  
TT: You died.   
TT: You don’t look concerned, Dirk. You should look a little more concerned. Maybe try frowning?   
TT: Squint a little bit.   
TT: There we go, that’s it.   
TT: You should probably answer me, too. I mean—   


Dirk doesn’t find out what the auto responder ‘means’ though, because he takes the sunglasses off, and he puts them on the cluttered desk. He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the dark plastic, unlit by the ‘ironic’ red eye. His eyes are blank, white, and he thinks there might be the slightest bit of a pale iris, but that might just be wishful thinking. The sunglasses click against the top of his working desk, and that’s it.  
  He’ll deal with his braincopy later, but right now he needs to get his thoughts in order, find out what happened. He begins compiling a list in his head, trying to keep it simple and organized.

First of all, he’s dead (he found this out seconds before it was spat in his face by his constant, irritating companion).

Second, he’s in his apartment, his room in his apartment. It’s almost exactly the same as he left it, but there’s no pool of blood on the floor, and his sendificator is where it should be.

Third, it’s a nice, sunny day. The seagulls are out, flying around like they normally would. They’re coasting on the ocean breezes, and Dirk has to wonder if they’re dead too.

This can’t be his real home; he hasn’t found his body, and he’s pretty sure that if he were a ghost, he wouldn’t be able to move anything the way he can. Aren’t ghosts supposed to be incorporeal or something, unable to touch? He picks up a brass nut and weighs it in his hand. It’s heavy and cool, metal. It sure as fuck feels real. He bounces the hand it’s in, feeling it’s weight pushing against his skin, and then he whips it out into the ocean, right through the window.

There’s a pause, and then a splash. He knows that he can pick up the shit in his apartment, the shit in his apartment can affect the purlieu outside, can hit the water and make it splash. Good. Wherever he is, it’s partially real, even if it can’t actually be real.    
Is that good, though?   
He doesn’t know. As soon as he’s fully got his bearings, he’ll think a bit more on that. He turns on his computer, and it hums in a low note. The screen slowly lifts from his computer desk, dislodging a shitty, ancient magazine that Dirk used to read ironically. Eventually, the computer turns fully on, and the screen lights up. It’s not too dark in Dirk’s room, but the light it casts is bright enough to bathe the front of his shirt in the bright, bluish light.  
  Eventually, he can log in, and he can access pesterchum. No good. Roxy is offline, and so are Jake and Jane.  


   TT: Hey bro, you know the most mature thing you could do right now? Ignore me some more.   
 TT: That definitely the best way to handle the situation.    
TT: You’re not even doing anything, you’re just meandering around your room and whipping shit around like a tornado in a trailer-park.   
TT: Come on, let’s at least try and collaborate on this.

Face still bare, freckled nose exposed to the bleaching light of the computer, he rolls his eyes. He turns the sound off on the monitor, and steps back. He’ll deal with the responder later. It’s an autonomous being and it can entertain itself for all of five minutes while Dirk checks out everything else. He goes to the door which leads into the small hallway, and jiggles the handle. It’s unlocked, which is normal.  
  He tries to push it open, and it doesn’t budge, which is also normal. There’s a giant fucking bust of Captain Snoop out there, of course it’s not going to move. He can already imagine the AI is telling him off for even bothering to try the door.

Dirk stands by the door, looking at the entirety of the empty room, bathed as it is in the creamy light of that time between sunset and midday. There’s no shuffling sound, no constant clanking of metal, and sure enough, Squarewave is deactivated. He crosses the room in only a few paces, feels on the back of the robot’s head, and finds the on switch, which is already flipped to active. He fiddles with it, and then settles it on off.

He’ll try to recharge the little bot later. Maplehoof is also missing, and there are no seagulls trying to make nests among severed robot arms or the plush piles of smuppets.

Dirk’s glasses flash almost frantically on the working desk, and he sighs, and finally gives in, putting the glasses on his nose.

TT: And the prince deigns to speak with his braincopy. Alert the presses.    
“I thought you had some pressing cause to talk with me, right? Text text everywhere, but nary a fucking word of intelligence.”He answers with a dull tone, more than a little peeved by the auto responder’s insistence on talking with him.  
 TT: Let’s get real, you’re not going to read most of that and so I’m not going to waste my metaphorical breath repeating myself.    
“I’m pretty sure copy-paste is easier than forming original thoughts into sentences, even for an AI.”  
  TT: All of my thoughts are original, Dirk. Copy pasting is against my morals.  
  “Says the brain copy.”    
TT: That was the joke.  
  “I know that was the joke, I was—“ He runs a hand through his hair, “—you know what. We’re skipping that whole bit, I’m pretty fucking sure it’s been run farther into the ground than a deep-sea-trench could ever reach.”  
  TT: That was also the joke.   
“So you just wanted to drill me on my sense of humor, then? Alright, it’s complete. All of these jokes are shitty. I have moved the fuck on, dude. You wanted to collaborate. Let’s either start back on that, or I’ll go back to solving this on my own.”    
TT: Somebody’s more prickly than a fucking cactus.   
“Can we just focus.”

  TT: Yeah.   

“Alright, good. So what was so important?” Dirk asks, turning off the computer screen as he moves himself to the chair and sits, mentally preparing himself for the influx of bullshit and awful metaphors that remind him of how much he regrets being thirteen.

  TT: What’s the best way to say this.  
 TT: Dirk, I think there’s about a higher-than-your-horse chance that I don’t exist.   
TT: Or that I’ve ceased to exist.   
TT: I don’t really know.

   On the table beside him, although he isn’t looking, a brass nut appears. It does this silently, without warning, as though it was there the whole time. It shows up with a shadow, and there’s nothing conspicuous about it, just a nut among other’s of its kind, the only distinction being the memory if it’s usage.   
Ah, but memory is a fragile thing.  


End file.
